The actor cast as a young Allen Ginsberg in the new film "Kill Your Darlings" first comes into focus wearing oversize reading glasses and carrying a broomstick. That wouldn't be worth remarking on except the star is Daniel Radcliffe, best known for playing Harry Potter in movies in which he famously sports large round spectacles and flies around on a magical broom.

Seated in a large conference room during the Toronto International Film Festival, Radcliffe cites this as an example of how difficult it has been to put some distance between himself and the boy wizard.

"Allen Ginsberg is a character that I think most people would say couldn't really be much further away from Potter," Radcliffe said about the eminent Beat poet. "Yet the first line of stage direction has me with a pair of glasses and a broomstick. It was in the script, and so we filmed it. The Potter connection, he said, "did not occur to any of us. But now I am at this festival, and that is all everyone asks me about."

Radcliffe, 24, comes across as very polite and unassuming. The latter has something to do with his height — officially 5 feet 5, but that may be generous.

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At a glance

"Kill Your Darlings"

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Michael C. Hall

Director: John Krokidas

Opens: Friday

He apologizes for yawning, the result of having three movies at the festival and trying to promote them all. The list underscores his desire to make Harry vanish by doing roles one can't imagine would include his Harry persona.

In "Horns," he sports horns in the wake of his girlfriend's death; in "The F Word," his first romantic comedy, he has a crush on Zoe Kazan, who already has a boyfriend; in "Darlings" he has a gay sex scene with "True Blood's" Dane DeHaan.

"It is lovely that people are giving me the opportunity to make strides and to do interesting work away from what people know me for," Radcliffe said.

Since the eighth and final Potter movie in 2011, he has practically written the playbook for child stars who want to move up to adult roles. He started by shocking fans when he took on the "Equus" role of Alan Strang, a stable boy who blinds six horses. The part required Radcliffe to be naked onstage.

"Looking back, that was probably the most important career decision I have ever made, simply because it made people in the industry sit up and take notice," said Radcliffe, who believes Alan is "the best part ever written for a 17-year-old."

Since then he has had other nude scenes, including taking a bath with Jon Hamm in their TV series "A Young Doctor's Notebook." Radcliffe has a sense of humor about taking off his clothes, saying on the Ellen DeGeneres show, "I'm comfortable with it, but I do like to point out, I don't, like, request it."

He's appeared onstage in the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," for which he learned to dance, and "The Cripple of Inishmaan" in which he had to distort his body.

"Obviously, plays don't reach nearly the audience that films do. But in terms of helping me as an actor and helping me grow and get better doing stage work is really pivotal," said Radcliffe, who had just finished "Inishmaan" and was grateful to get full motion back in his body.

His public relations team has been masterful about dribbling out pieces of information that could be construed as negative, but also emphasizes that Radcliffe is not a child anymore. For instance, in 2011 he confided to the press that he had a drinking problem but that it was under control. "I drank so much that I'd black out," he told the London Daily Mail. He's also talked about enjoying sex with groupies: young women who made themselves available because they are Potter fans.

Asked if the pressure he felt to deliver in the Potter franchise might have driven him to drink, he denies a connection.

"My instinctual answer is no. I don't think anything I did was remotely affected by Potter. I think it all would have happened anyway. And I think actually Potter was a real safe haven for me, and the actual process of filming really made me incredibly happy, and it was something that really helped me at times to have a focus," said Radcliffe, who often refers to his character as Potter, not Harry. He gave a shout out to director Chris Columbus, who made the first two movies.

"Chris is a wonderful director and a wonderful surrogate father and a wonderful leader," he said. "You will not find crews who want to work harder for their director than Chris' crew."

The Potter franchise left Radcliffe one of the wealthiest actors in Britain, with a net worth of $80 million. He has homes in London and New York, the latter an extravagance. He has spent only three days there this year. When he is not working he sits around all day watching TV. He's become a huge fan of American football and could watch it nonstop.

His money gives him the luxury of only committing to work he is wild about. "Kill Your Darlings," is a case in point. Radcliffe is fascinated by Beat poetry and welcomed the chance to learn about its origins.

"I knew about (William) Burroughs and (Jack) Kerouac and I knew how they fitted together in the canon of American literature," he said. "But I knew absolutely nothing about Ginsberg's personal life."

The film deals with a little known but very dramatic time in the life of the author of "Howl," when he was a freshman at Columbia University in 1944. Ginsberg became part of a circle of intellectuals that included Lucien Carr (played by DeHaan). It was through Carr that Ginsberg met the people who would become the Beats.

"The movie is a lot easier for me because I don't have to play Lucien," Radcliffe said. "I just get to be in love with him, which is easy because he is charismatic and charming and, you know, outgoing — everything Allen is not and everything Allen wants to be. I think often you are attracted to qualities in somebody you don't have in yourself."

Radcliffe acknowledges that he doesn't look like Ginsberg ("Hopefully not," he said, laughing) but he tried to bring out the qualities that were reminiscent of the poet.

"When I talked to people who knew him, they said he was kind of nerdy and kind of goofy but really good fun to be around and very compassionate."

Next he will play the hunchback assistant Igor in a new version of "Frankenstein."

"This is my year of physical disability," he said. James McAvoy plays the scientist Dr. Frankenstein.

"It has fun with the conventions of Frankenstein and how we have seen him portrayed in the past," Radcliffe said. "It is the best script that I read to come out of a studio since I finished 'Potter.'"